Crashed IAF AN-32 aircraft wreckage found; bodies recovered

Itanagar, June 10 (PTI) After a 24-hour search, security
personnel Wednesday found the wreckage of an Indian Air Force
(IAF) An-32 transport aircraft that crashed near a village at
West Siang district in India's north-eastern state of
Arunachal Pradesh and recovered the charred bodies of all the
13 defence personnel killed in the mishap.

The aircraft had crashed over the Rinchi Hill above Heyo
village, about 30 km from Mechuka advance landing ground in
the district located about 60 km from the Indo-Chinese Line of
Actual Control, State police and IAF officials said here.

Among the seven IAF men and six Army personnel on board
the ill-fated aircraft were two wing commanders, two squadron
leaders and a flight lieutenant.

"The IAF search team reached the air crash site and has
recovered the bodies of the personnel, who were on board the
aircraft," an IAF spokesperson said in New Delhi.

The aircraft, belonging to a squadron in Jorhat in Assam,
was on a routine sortie for air maintenance of troops and had
landed in Mechuka on Tuesday morning.

It was on its flight to Mohanbari airbase in Assam and
had taken off from Mechuka around 1400 hours and soon went
missing from the radar, the spokesperson said.

The police quoted some local residents as saying they
heard a loud noise and saw thick smoke billowing from the
distant hills. Body parts of crew-members were found strewn
around the wreckage of the mangled aircraft, Additional
Superintendent of Police H Lanin told PTI over telephone from
Aalo, headquarters of the West Siang district.

The IAF crew-members had been identified as Wing
Commander G S Butalia, Wing Commander P Shaji, Squadron Leader
P Siddharth, Squadron Leader Manas Mishra, Flight Lieutenant
Varun Kumar, Master Warrant Officer Ramesh and Aircraftsman
Sanjay Kumar, all of whom were from the Rowriah air base in
Jorhat, the IAF spokesperson said.

Identity of the six Army jawans was not known.

The spokesperson said IAF would send a team of
specialists to the spot to recover the Cockpit Voice Recorder
(CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (also called Black Box)
after which an inquiry would be conducted.

"It is only after they are found that can we confirm
the reasons for the crash", the spokesman said, not ruling out
the possibility of a technical snag. PTI